Fracking Waste: A Radioactive Legacy for New York?

        New York Landfills Import Hazardous Fracking Waste -- TAKE ACTION to Protect Our  Environment and Health

By David Kowalski .

Marcellus Shale contains radioactive materials, including uranium and its decay products, radium and radon. Normally, the radioactive material is safely buried deep underground. However, shale gas drilling and fracking bring radioactivity in solids and liquid wastewater to the surface, posing a risk to the environment and public health if not properly managed.

Radium and radon can cause cancer if ingested or inhaled. Radium causes leukemia and bone cancer. Radon, a gaseous decay product of radium, is the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers.

In 2009, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) found radium levels in Marcellus Shale wastewater that are thousands of times greater than that allowed in drinking water by the Environmental Protection Agency, and up to 267 times the limit for safe discharge into the environment.

Exemption from a key federal regulation allows gas industry solid and liquid waste to pass as “non-hazardous.” However, it is becoming more widely appreciated that the waste can contain radioactive materials, in which case it should be regulated as "hazardous" waste and be managed accordingly.

Drilling and fracking waste in the form of sludge from Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale has triggered radiation alarms at municipal landfills. The sludge contains flowback fluids, frack sand and other fluids. Sludge must contain at least 20% solids according to the DEC, implying that it could contain as much as 80% flowback fluid and other fluids containing soluble radioactive material.

Liquid leachate from landfills is sent to wastewater treatment plants unequipped to monitor or remove radioactive materials, threatening drinking water sources.

Waste from drilling and fracking in Pennsylvania has been imported by 6 New York landfills  (see Map at bottom of page), including one in Niagara Falls that is not permitted to receive radioactive waste.

In West Virginia, tons of waste from Marcellus natural gas wells are going to municipal landfills, and radioactivity is leaching into surface water.

In the first four months of 2014, nine loads of Pennsylvania shale gas drilling waste were rejected by local landfills because of higher-than-normal radioactivity. Some of this radioactive drilling waste was shipped from Pennsylvania to West Virginia landfills that are not required to monitor radioactivity.

The gas industry has not identified methods to safely dispose the hazardous, radioactive waste and is shipping it to municipal landfills. It would be costly for industry to properly dispose the waste at a facility licensed to handle radioactive waste, but this is exactly what must be done to protect the environment and public health.

The industry is also failing to cleanup the hazardous, radioactive material in fracking wastewater. A peer-reviewed scientific paper reported radium levels of 200 times background in Pennsylvania’s Blacklick Creek sediments downstream of a specialized fracking wastewater treatment plant. A large portion of the radioactivity in the fracking wastewater appeared to have been removed before discharge into the waterway, but it is not clear where that radioactive material was disposed.

Avner Vengosh, the Duke University researcher who led the scientific study, said that "once you have a release of fracking fluid into the environment, you end up with a radioactive legacy." Contamination by radium, which has a half-life of 1602 years, will persist in the environment for many thousands of years.

Radioactive materials are present in a variety of gas-bearing formations, not just the Marcellus. Radioactivity can be present in the wastewater not only after high-volume fracking, but also following low-volume fracking, which is currently permitted in New York.

The DEC permits spreading fracking waste called 'brine' (salty wastewater) obtained from low-volume fracking wells and gas storage facilities on roads for de-icing, dust control and road stabilization as well as on land for dust control. Spreading applications of fracking brine have been approved for use in portions of at least 23 municipalities in 7 western New York counties: Erie, Niagara, Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, Genessee, Wyoming, and Seneca. Also, the New York State Department of Transportation Region 6 received approval to spread brine from natural gas storage on State roads in portions of Steuben, Allegany, Chemung, Schuyler, and Yates Counties.

Spreading of any fracking wastewater on roads or land should not be permitted without first testing for radioactive materials. If radium and radon are present, aerosols and dust containing radium could be inhaled along with radon gas. Radium in liquid runoff that makes its way into drinking water and fish could be ingested.

Radium and radon in waste from shale gas drilling and fracking pose a serious threat to the environment and public health. Cancers induced by ingestion or inhalation of these radioactive materials can take years to develop.

Regulation of radioactive waste in gas drilling is just as lax now as it was shown to be in investigative reports of 2011. The public should demand that the New York State Legislature pass laws to protect our water, land, air and health from the dire consequences of long-lived radioactive contamination.

NY State Senator Tkaczyk sponsored a common-sense bill to ban transportation of fracking waste from Pennsylvania and elsewhere into New York and ban disposal. However, the bill was defeated in the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee in a straight party-line vote (7 Nays by Republicans to 6 Ayes by Democrats).

A key bill sponsored by Senator Avella (S674), and the 'same as' bill sponsored by Assemblyman Sweeney (A1046), would close the loophole that allows fracking waste to be designated as "non-hazardous," despite the fact that it can be hazardous in ways described above. Fracking waste needs to be monitored. If it contains radioactive or toxic materials, it should be regulated as "hazardous" waste and be stored, transported, and disposed in ways that protect the environment and health. As stated in the bill, "If not treated properly, hazardous waste can, among other concerns, lead to contaminated air, drinking water, soil, and food."

TAKE ACTION: Contact your NY State Senator (Click Here) and Assembly Member (Click Here) and ask them to co-sponsor the bills (S674 and A1046) to protect our environment and health.

Public input is more important than ever given heavy campaign contributions to state legislators from the natural gas industry.

In the absence of New York State laws, the public has little choice but to call for municipal bans on fracking waste in order to protect our environment and health.

An abbreviated version of this article was published in The Buffalo News on May 29, 2014.

Sources of Pennsylvania drilling/fracking waste disposed at 6 New York landfills
Credits: Karen Edelstein, NYS Coordinator for FracTracker Alliance

Slide Show: Shale Gas Potential in New York

The slide show was produced and narrated by Jerry Acton, a Systems Engineer & Systems Architect (retired) at IBM and Lockheed. Acton describes an analytical procedure he developed that uses shale gas production data from Pennsylvania (PA) together with the depth and thickness of the Marcellus Shale along the PA-NY border to forecast shale gas production in New York and its economic impact.

A written report based on Acton's findings is HERE.

New York Lacks Economically Recoverable Shale Gas

Black diamonds represent uneconomic drilling (see text) -- Jerry Acton.

New York Shale Play Gets Major Downgrade

By Peter Mantius

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. — The real reason New York State has not allowed high-volume hydrofracking for natural gas in its Marcellus shale is that there is almost no gas that can be economically extracted, according to four retired professionals turned fracking analysts.

Their argument contradicts the gas industry’s narrative – widely accepted as fact by many landowners, investors, politicians and state regulators – that shale gas is a potential economic “game-changer” for poor, rural upstate New York.

For the past four years, two governors have repeatedly extended the state’s de facto moratorium on fracking while they tinkered with the rules. Since last fall, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said he is waiting for the results of a vaguely defined health study, frustrating pro-gas groups with his apparent lack of urgency.

But the four analysts now argue that it’s geology – not health – that best explains Cuomo’s foot-dragging. In the governor’s cost-benefit analysis, they say, meager potential economic gains from drilling are not worth the environmental and political risk.

“The vast majority of the New York Marcellus shale is too thin (less than 150 feet thick) and too shallow (less than 4,500 feet) to yield economically recoverable natural gas,” said Jerry Acton, a retired systems engineer for IBM and Lockheed Martin who based his conclusions on drilling production results from neighboring Pennsylvania, where fracking is allowed.

Acton crunched four years of publicly available data supplied to regulators by Pennsylvania drillers. His analysis covered all 1,539 active natural gas wells drilled into the Marcellus shale in six counties that border New York. Acton found that median production results [Figure: Median IP chart, colored bars] for specific towns and counties [colored circles on map] correlate closely with the depth [white lines] and thickness [black lines & numbers] of the shale layer drilled. The deeper and thicker, the better.

That finding points to trouble for drilling prospects in New York, Acton said, because its Marcellus layer is relatively shallow and thin. While a cluster of Pennsylvania gas wells only 40 miles southwest of Binghamton have been highly successful, they tap a Marcellus layer that is much thicker and deeper than any in New York. As Pennsylvania drillers moved west of that sweet spot into thinner, shallower sections with geology similar to New York’s, gas production levels plummeted.

Read more at DC Bureau.

See also this economics report: Hyped Benefits of Fracked Gas Already Fading
By Deborah Rogers at EcoWatch

Shale Gas -- Revolution or Bubble?

Pennsylvania fracking boom goes bust
By Will Bunch, Daily News Staff Writer
It was just a couple of years ago that fracking was booming in upstate Pennsylvania's Bradford County, and Janet Geiger, a retired hospital worker living on a 10-acre spread near the New York border, could count on getting a $300 to $400 check every month from the gas giant Chesapeake Energy Corp., which was drilling under her land.

But both the gas and the checks - with the financially ailing Chesapeake now claiming big deductions - dwindled until finally, in March, a check never showed up. "I thought the mail had gotten lost," said Geiger, 74, but after a week she finally reached someone with the Oklahoma gas driller who explained "they didn't have a buyer [for the gas] that month."

But Geiger said that she'd already seen the signs of a slowdown, that rural streets once clogged with the massive trucks of the drilling firms were mostly empty now, while new motels that had been hastily thrown up or expanded to accommodate a flood of out-of-state workers had only a couple of cars in the parking lots.
Read more at the Philadelphia Inquirer.

US shale gas project 'biggest regret' for outgoing Shell boss
Outgoing Shell chief executive Peter Voser says in an interview with the Financial Times his biggest regret during his time at the company is the failure of the company’s huge bet on US shale gas.
The Financial Times says Shell has invested at least $24bn in so-called unconventional oil and gas in North America. But the investment has yet to pay off and in August Shell said it would carry out a ‘strategic review’ of its US shale activities.

‘Unconventionals did not exactly play out as planned,’ Voser is quoted as saying.

He also admitted exploration results in US shale beds had been disappointing. ‘We expected higher flow rates and therefore more scalability for a company like Shell,’ he said.
Read more at Dutch News.


Shale Bubble

We’re being told that – thanks to technological advances like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling – the US is undergoing an energy revolution, leading us in a few short years to become once again the world’s biggest oil producer and an exporter of natural gas. According to the Oil & Gas Industry and their proponents, “fracking” will provide the US with energy security, low energy prices for the foreseeable future, more than a million jobs, and economic growth.

Pointing to record low natural gas prices and increased production, policymakers and the media on both sides of the political aisle, as well as investors and utilities, have bought the hype and are shifting their plans and proposals with the expectation that the shale revolution is here to stay.

The Reality is that the so-called shale revolution is nothing more than a bubble, driven by record levels of drilling, speculative lease & flip practices on the part of shale energy companies, fee-driven promotion by the same investment banks that fomented the housing bubble, and by unsustainably low natural gas prices. Geological and economic constraints – not to mention the very serious environmental and health impacts of drilling – mean that shale gas and shale oil (tight oil) are far from the solution to our energy woes.
See the full report at ShaleBubble.org 

US shale gas project 'biggest regret' for outgoing Shell boss

Monday 07 October 2013
Outgoing Shell chief executive Peter Voser says in an interview with the Financial Times his biggest regret during his time at the company is the failure of the company’s huge bet on US shale gas.
The FT says Shell has invested at least $24bn in so-called unconventional oil and gas in North America. But the investment has yet to pay off and in August Shell said it would carry out a ‘strategic review’ of its US shale activities.

‘Unconventionals did not exactly play out as planned,’ Voser is quoted as saying.
He also admitted exploration results in US shale beds had been disappointing. ‘We expected higher flow rates and therefore more scalability for a company like Shell,’ he said.
- See more at: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2013/10/us_shale_gas_project_biggest_r.php#sthash.CNn5l8qf.6bLkEKok.dpuf

US shale gas project 'biggest regret' for outgoing Shell boss

Monday 07 October 2013
Outgoing Shell chief executive Peter Voser says in an interview with the Financial Times his biggest regret during his time at the company is the failure of the company’s huge bet on US shale gas.
The FT says Shell has invested at least $24bn in so-called unconventional oil and gas in North America. But the investment has yet to pay off and in August Shell said it would carry out a ‘strategic review’ of its US shale activities.

‘Unconventionals did not exactly play out as planned,’ Voser is quoted as saying.
He also admitted exploration results in US shale beds had been disappointing. ‘We expected higher flow rates and therefore more scalability for a company like Shell,’ he said.
- See more at: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2013/10/us_shale_gas_project_biggest_r.php#sthash.CNn5l8qf.6bLkEKok.dpuf

Fracking -- No Complaints, No Problems -- Right? Wrong!

Drillers Silence Fracking Claims With Sealed Settlements
By Jim Efstathiou Jr. and Mark Drajem
Cross-posted from Bloomberg News

Chris and Stephanie Hallowich were sure drilling for natural gas near their Pennsylvania home was to blame for the headaches, burning eyes and sore throats they suffered after the work began. 

The companies insisted hydraulic fracturing -- the technique they used to free underground gas -- wasn’t the cause. Nevertheless, in 2011, a year after the family sued, Range Resources Corp (RRC). and two other companies agreed to a $750,000 settlement. In order to collect, the Hallowiches promised not to tell anyone, according to court filings.

The Hallowiches aren’t alone. In cases from Wyoming to Arkansas, Pennsylvania to Texas, drillers have agreed to cash settlements or property buyouts with people who say hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, ruined their water, according to a review by Bloomberg News of hundreds of regulatory and legal filings. In most cases homeowners must agree to keep quiet.

The strategy keeps data from regulators, policymakers, the news media and health researchers, and makes it difficult to challenge the industry’s claim that fracking has never tainted anyone’s water.

“At this point they feel they can get out of this litigation relatively cheaply,” Marc Bern, an attorney with Napoli Bern Ripka Sholnik LLP in New York who has negotiated about 30 settlements on behalf of homeowners, said in an interview. “Virtually on all of our settlements where they paid money they have requested and demanded that there be confidentiality.”

Energy Transformation

Because the agreements are almost always shrouded by non-disclosure pacts -- a judge ordered the Hallowich case unsealed after media requests -- no one can say for sure how many there are. Some stem from lawsuits, while others result from complaints against the drillers or with regulators that never end up in court.

“We are transforming our energy infrastructure in this country from burning coal for electricity to potentially burning a lot of natural gas,” Aaron Bernstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard School of Public Health, said in an interview. Non-disclosure agreements “have interfered with the ability of scientists and public health experts to understand what is at stake here.”

FRACKING: Animals Dying, People Sick in Pennsylvania

By Ellen Cantarow*

Cross-posted from Grist

More than 70 years ago, a chemical attack was launched against Washington state and Nevada. It poisoned people, animals, everything that grew, breathed air, and drank water. The Marshall Islands were also struck. This formerly pristine Pacific atoll was branded “the most contaminated place in the world.” As their cancers developed, the victims of atomic testing and nuclear weapons development got a name: downwinders. What marked their tragedy was the darkness in which they were kept about what was being done to them. Proof of harm fell to them, not to the U.S. government agencies responsible [PDF].

Now, a new generation of downwinders is getting sick as an emerging industry pushes the next wonder technology — in this case, high-volume hydraulic fracturing. Whether they live in Texas, Colorado, or Pennsylvania, their symptoms are the same: rashes, nosebleeds, severe headaches, difficulty breathing, joint pain, intestinal illnesses, memory loss, and more. “In my opinion,” says Yuri Gorby of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, “what we see unfolding is a serious health crisis, one that is just beginning.”

The process of “fracking” starts by drilling a mile or more vertically, then outward laterally into 500-million-year-old shale formations, the remains of oceans that once flowed over parts of North America. Millions of gallons of chemical and sand-laced water are then propelled into the ground at high pressures, fracturing the shale and forcing the methane it contains out. With the release of that gas come thousands of gallons of contaminated water. This “flowback” fluid contains the original fracking chemicals, plus heavy metals and radioactive material that also lay safely buried in the shale.

The industry that uses this technology calls its product “natural gas,” but there’s nothing natural about upending half a billion years of safe storage of methane and everything that surrounds it. It is, in fact, an act of ecological violence around which alien infrastructures — compressor stations that compact the gas for pipeline transport, ponds of contaminated flowback, flare stacks that burn off gas impurities, diesel trucks in quantity, thousands of miles of pipelines, and more — have metastasized across rural America, pumping carcinogens and toxins into water, air, and soil.

Sixty percent of Pennsylvania lies over a huge shale sprawl called the Marcellus, and that has been in the fracking industry’s sights since 2008. The corporations that are exploiting the shale come to the state with lavish federal entitlements: exemptions from the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Clean Drinking Water Acts, as well as the Superfund Act, which requires cleanup of hazardous substances. The industry doesn’t have to call its trillions of gallons of annual waste “hazardous.” Instead, it uses euphemisms like “residual waste.” In addition, fracking companies are allowed to keep secret many of the chemicals they use.

Pennsylvania, in turn, adds its own privileges. A revolving door shuttles former legislators, governors, and officials from the state’s Department of Environmental Protection into gas industry positions. The DEP itself is now the object of a lawsuit that charges the agency with producing deceptive lab reports, and then using them to dismiss homeowners’ complaints that shale gas corporations have contaminated their water, making them sick. The people I interviewed have their own nickname for the DEP: “Don’t Expect Protection.”

The downwinders
Randy Moyer is a pleasant-faced, bearded 49-year-old whose drawl reminds you that Portage, his hardscrabble hometown in southwestern Pennsylvania, is part of Appalachia. He worked 18 years — until gasoline prices got too steep — driving his own rigs to haul waste in New York and New Jersey. Then what looked like a great opportunity presented itself: $25 an hour working for a hydraulic-fracturing subcontractor in northeastern Pennsylvania.

In addition to hauling fracking liquid, water, and waste, Randy also did what’s called, with no irony, “environmental.” He climbed into large vats to squeegee out the remains of fracking fluid. He also cleaned the huge mats laid down around the wells to even the ground out for truck traffic. Those mats get saturated with “drilling mud,” a viscous, chemical-laden fluid that eases the passage of the drills into the shale. What his employer never told him was that the drilling mud, as well as the wastewater from fracking, is not only highly toxic, but radioactive.

In the wee hours of a very cold day in November 2011, he stood in a huge basin at a well site, washing 1,000 mats with high-pressure hoses, taking breaks every so often to warm his feet in his truck. “I took off my shoes and my feet were as red as a tomato,” he told me. When the air from the heater hit them, he “nearly went through the roof.”

Once at home, he scrubbed his feet, but the excruciating pain didn’t abate. A “rash” that covered his feet soon spread up to his torso. A year and a half later, the skin inflammation still recurs. His upper lip repeatedly swells. A couple of times his tongue swelled so large that he had press it down with a spoon to be able to breathe. “I’ve been fried for over 13 months with this stuff,” he told me in late January. “I can just imagine what hell is like. It feels like I’m absolutely on fire.”

Family and friends have taken Moyer to emergency rooms at least four times. He has consulted more than 40 doctors. No one can say what caused the rashes, or his headaches, migraines, chest pain, and irregular heartbeat, or the shooting pains down his back and legs, his blurred vision, vertigo, memory loss, the constant white noise in his ears, and the breathing troubles that require him to stash inhalers throughout his small apartment.

In an earlier era, workers’ illnesses fell into the realm of “industrial medicine.” But these days, when it comes to the U.S. fracking industry, the canaries aren’t restricted to the coal mines. People like Randy seem to be the harbingers of what happens when a toxic environment is no longer buried miles beneath the earth. The gas fields that evidently poisoned him are located near thriving communities. “For just about every other industry I can imagine,” says Anthony Ingraffea of Cornell University, coauthor of a landmark study [PDF] that established fracking’s colossal greenhouse-gas footprint, “from making paint, building a toaster, building an automobile, those traditional kinds of industry occur in a zoned industrial area, inside of buildings, separated from home and farm, separated from schools.” By contrast, natural gas corporations, he says, “are imposing on us the requirement to locate our homes, hospitals, and schools inside their industrial space.”

The death and life of Little Rose
Little Rose was Angel Smith’s favorite horse. When the vet shod her, Angel told me proudly, she obligingly lifted the next hoof as soon as the previous one was done. “Wanna eat, Rosie?” Angel would ask, and Rosie would nod her head. “Are you sure?” Angel would tease, and Rosie would raise one foreleg, clicking her teeth together. In Clearville, just south of Portage, Angel rode Little Rose in parades, carrying the family’s American flag.

In 2002, a “landman” knocked on the door and asked Angel and her husband Wayne to lease the gas rights of their 115-acre farm to the San Francisco-based energy corporation PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric.) At first, he was polite, but then he started bullying. “All your neighbors have signed. If you don’t, we’ll just suck the gas from under your land.” Perhaps from weariness and a lack of information (almost no one outside the industry then knew anything about high-volume hydraulic fracturing), they agreed. Drilling began in 2002 on neighbors’ land and in 2005 on the Smith’s.

On Jan. 30, 2007, Little Rose staggered, fell, and couldn’t get up. Her legs moved spasmodically. When Wayne and Angel dragged her to a sitting position, she’d just collapse again. “I called every vet in the phone book,” says Angel. “They all said, ‘Shoot her.’” The couple couldn’t bear to do it. After two days, a neighbor shot her. “It was our choice,” says Angel, her voice breaking. “She was my best friend.”
Soon, the Smiths’ cows began showing similar symptoms. Those that didn’t die began aborting or giving birth to dead calves. All the chickens died, too. So did the barn cats. And so did three beloved dogs, none of them old, all previously healthy. A 2012 study [PDF] by Michelle Bamberger and Cornell University pharmacology professor Robert Oswald indicates that, in the gas fields, these are typical symptoms in animals and often serve as early warning signs for their owners’ subsequent illnesses.

The Smiths asked the DEP to test their water. The agency told them that it was safe to drink, but Angel Smith says that subsequent testing by Pennsylvania State University investigators revealed high levels of arsenic.

Meanwhile, the couple began suffering from headaches, nosebleeds, fatigue, throat and eye irritation, and shortness of breath. Wayne’s belly began swelling oddly, even though, says Angel, he isn’t heavy. X-rays of his lungs showed scarring and calcium deposits. A blood analysis revealed cirrhosis of the liver. “Get him to stop drinking,” said the doctor who drew Angel aside after the results came in. “Wayne doesn’t drink,” she replied. Neither does Angel, who at 42 now has liver disease.

By the time the animals began dying, five high-volume wells had been drilled on neighbors’ land. Soon, water started bubbling up under their barn floor and an oily sheen and foam appeared on their pond. In 2008, a compressor station was built half a mile away. These facilities, which compress natural gas for pipeline transport, emit known carcinogens and toxins like benzene and toluene.

The Smiths say people they know elsewhere in Clearville have had similar health problems, as have their animals. For a while they thought their own animals’ troubles were over, but just this past February several cows aborted. The couple would like to move away, but can’t. No one will buy their land. 

Shale Gas Drillers Fail to Comply with Regulations Protecting Health and Environment

The PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center released a report  entitled "Risky Business: An Analysis of Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling Violations in Pennsylvania 2008-2011" on February 8, 2012.

Using records obtained by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP), the Center identified a total of 3,355 violations of environmental laws by 64 different Marcellus Shale gas drilling companies between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2011.  Of these violations, the Center identified 2,392 violations that likely posed a direct threat to our environment. These were not reporting or paperwork violations. 

Moreover, the PennEnvironment Research and Policy Center believes these numbers offer a conservative view of environmental violations taking place across the Pennsylvania by Marcellus Shale gas drilling companies. These data only include violations discovered by PADEP’s enforcement staff. Yet based upon the number of wells drilled and limited PADEP enforcement staff, further violations that have gone undetected are likely.

The greatest numbers of environmental violations were related to improper erosion and sedimentation plans: 625 (26% of all violations likely to impact the environment). The second greatest number involved faulty pollution prevention techniques: 550 (23% of violations likely to impact the environment).

Between 2008 and 2011, on average, Pennsylvania saw more than two violations per day uncovered by PADEP, roughly 1.5 of which had the greatest potential to impact the environment.

PennEnvironment Research and Policy Center identified 963 violations (29% of all violations) that seemed less likely to directly endanger the environment or the safety of communities. Their report focuses on the violations that have the greatest potential for directly impacting Pennsylvania’s environment.

The report concludes that "Marcellus Shale gas drilling companies are either unable or unwilling to comply with basic environmental laws that have been put in place to protect the health and environment of Pennsylvanians."

PennEnvironment Research and Policy Center recommends in the report that "certain policy handles must be implemented in order to stop the rampant rate of environmental violations that drilling companies commit in Pennsylvania each year."

Visit the PENN Environment Web site to download the report and to see information about the author and sources of foundation support. 

Commentary ~ by David Kowalski 
It's interesting to compare the PENN Environment results with those in a new report by the University at Buffalo (UB) Shale Resources and Society Institute (SRSI). The latter report is entitled "Environmental Impacts during Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling: Causes, Impacts and Remedies" (released May 15, 2012 and revised June 6, 2012). Both reports analyzed PADEP data but they arrived at very different conclusions.

The True Cost of America's Gas Rush

In an effort to promote drilling, the gas industry has repeatedly stated that hydraulic fracturing ('fracking') is safe, without acknowledging that the current technology is new and unconventional. The wealthy industry influences popular opinion through TV and press ads that promote shale-gas drilling, touting only the economic benefits. 

But what about the costs incurred when unconventional drilling occurs close to places where people live and farm? How does shale-gas drilling and fracking affect the well-being of homeowners and rural communities? How does this chemical-laced and water-intensive process affect the quality and quantity of their drinking water? What will become of the toxic and radioactive wastewater? Are there risks to human health, now or in the future?

You can read all you want about the costs of the gas rush, but there is nothing like seeing with your own eyes and hearing from affected people about the impacts of unconventional shale-gas drilling. 

The video below is an investigative report on shale-gas drilling in Pennsylvania communities, where drilling has been going on for over 3 years. Please watch it and share this link - j.mp/TrueCostOfGas - with your friends.

 

Recent reports about shale-gas drilling: 

• Safe Water for Families with Wells Polluted after Gas Drilling 
•  Gas Industry Gave Campaigns Big Bucks to Back Hydrofracking in NY State

For more reports about shale-gas drilling and fracking, click here.

Fracking Protesters March in Pittsburgh

Hundreds of protesters marched and rallied outside the Pittsburgh Convention Center this afternoon as a shale gas drilling convention went on inside.

In reference to the protest of Marcellus Shale gas drilling using the controversial method of fracking, City Councilman Doug Shields said, "This is about our health. This is about our children. This is about our air. This is about our clean water. This is about public safety. It's time for us to give our voices to this."

A brief report and pictures are here. To check out a video of the march, click here.

Shale Gas: Boon or Bane?

South and east of Buffalo, and deep underground, lies the Marcellus Shale, a rock formation recently found to be rich in natural gas [click image to enlarge]. It is a largely untapped gas reserve that could be a boon to the economy. However, extracting shale gas requires a controversial method, called hydraulic fracturing or fracking, that could be an environmental bane and a threat to human health.

Fracking differs radically from the method used to safely extract natural gas from conventional wells. Fracking requires drilling vertically a mile deep, passing through the aquifer and threatening drinking water. Horizontal drilling is then done for up to several thousand feet, and so the well drilled vertically on one persons property could end up underneath other properties. The process further requires over one million of gallons of water mixed with sand and toxic chemicals. Applying pressure to this mixture underground leads to fracturing of the shale, thereby releasing the gas trapped in the rock formations, along with polluted waste water.

Locations in states that have used the fracking process have reported over a thousand cases of drinking water contamination and other evidence of pollution. The NY State Department of Environmental Conservation analyzed wastewater extracted from wells and found levels of a radioactive element up to 267 times the limit safe for discharge into the environment and thousands of times the limit safe for people to drink.

A moratorium on fracking in New York state has been called for by citizen groups and student activists, and by a bill sponsored by Sen. Antoine Thompson. Fracking is also under study by the Environmental Protection Agency and is under investigation by U.S. Congressional committees.

The EPA will hold public meetings in Binghamton NY on September 13 & 15.

An excellent two-part article by Jerry Zremski was published in The Buffalo News on Sept. 5 & 6, 2010. The first part, Motherlode of gas is fractious pursuit, describes the impact of shale gas fracking in Pennsylvania, in terms of its effects on the economy, the land owners, communities and the landscape. The second part, Amid drilling for clean fuel, why does water go bad?, focuses on environmental hazards and drilling violations associated with fracking.

Stay informed about the impacts of fracking on the environment, economy and public health. Let the Governor and your NY State representatives know how you feel about using the method of hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas from the Marcellus Shale.

See some of the many reasons why people are concerned about fracking in a video trailer of the documentary film, GASLAND, shown below. The film by Josh Fox was selected as Best U.S. Documentary Feature at Sundance 2010. Fox traveled across 32 states to meet other rural residents, like himself, who are on the front lines of fracking. He discovered toxic streams, ruined aquifers, dying livestock, and brutal illnesses...also, a kitchen sink faucet that emits flammable gas!